How long doesYeastlast in the fridge once opened?
What opening the package actually costs
Opening the package is the decision that settles this page. Sealed, the item holds 2 years sealed in the pantry; once open it holds 4 months open in the fridge, the same food measured in months instead of years, a drop of 6.1 times.
Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item
All three places the USDA recognizes are rated here — pantry, refrigerator and freezer — which only 65 of the 466 foods in the data manage. Within Baked Goods it is filed under Baking and Cooking.
- In the freezer6 months
- Unopened · in the pantry2 years
- Once opened · in the fridge4 months
What the USDA adds in words
The USDA attaches 1 handling note to this item, reproduced below word for word. It is not a storage time: it qualifies the figure above rather than replacing it. These are the source's own sentences, not ours, and they are the part of the FoodKeeper record that a table of durations cannot carry.
In the pantry, from the day you bought it. Store in cool, dry place. Must be refrigerated or frozen once opened.
Turning the range into a date
Two clocks run on this item: one from the day it went into storage and one from the day the seal broke. Both are listed below, 3 rows in all.
- In the freezerUse by6 months after the day you stored it
- Unopened · in the pantryUse by2 years after the day you bought it
- Once opened · in the fridgeUse by4 months after the day you opened it
Is this window about safety or about taste?
The answer at the top of this page reads 4 months in the fridge once opened. What decides that is the food and not the shelf the source files it on: Yeast, packaged is acid, dry, sweet, alcoholic or pure fat. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.
Held at 0 °F food stays safe for as long as it stays frozen, which is why a freezer figure counts as quality on this site whatever the food is. Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.
It is past the date. Now what?
Say the calculator above puts Yeast, packaged past its 4 months in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold takes the whole package out rather than the slice it grew on, and so does a musty or old-oil smell in a flour or a mix.
The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.
Is that a long time?
15 items in the Baked Goods list keep exactly as long as this item, 2 years, so they all share place 3 of 52 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 81% of them.
Items that behave the same way
All 5 of the 6 items nearest this item keep exactly as long as it does, 2 years, so the ranking around it is a tie rather than an order.
Products the USDA rates in the same places
4 other products are rated in exactly these places — freezer, pantry from the day of purchase and refrigerator after opening — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Tomato paste, Coconut and Coconut milk. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the 4 shown, 2 keep longer than this one. The longest-keeping of them is Coconut cream at 5 years.
- Tomato paste5 days in the fridge once openedup to 27 months sealed in the pantry
- Coconut8 months in the fridge once openedup to 1 year sealed in the pantry
- Coconut milk7 days in the fridge once opened
- Coconut cream4 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
Closest by shape, but not an exact match — they share most of these places, not all of them.
- Cornmeal6 months sealed in the pantryregular, degerminated · up to 2 years in the pantry once opened
- Pastries5 days sealed in the pantryup to 14 months in the fridge once opened
- Fruit cake6 months sealed in the pantryup to 12 months in the fridge once opened
- Flour6 months in the pantry once openedwhite
The rest of the Baking and Cooking shelf
The USDA puts this product on the Baking and Cooking shelf together with 34 others, and 2 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Baking soda at 3 years down to Herbs at 10 days. Nearest this product by window are Chocolate, Cornmeal and Vegetable oil sprays, which is the order the list below is printed in. Across the whole of Baked Goods the same product ranks 3 of 52. The middle of the shelf is Sugar, at 24 months. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Baking and Cooking inside Baked Goods.
- Chocolate2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Cornmeal2 years6 months sealed in the pantry
- Vegetable oil sprays2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Shortening2 years6 months in the pantry once opened
- Chili powder2 years2 years in the pantry once opened
- Seasoning blends2 years1 year in the pantry once opened
- Sugar substitutes2 years2 years sealed in the pantry
- Whole wheat flour2 years2 years in the fridge
If it has to keep longer than this
Nothing the USDA files under Baked Goods keeps at least twice as long as this one outside the freezer. It runs the other way: 30 entries in the category keep half as long or less, among them Cocoa and cocoa mixes, Garam masala and Fruit cake. So the question this page answers is not what to buy instead, but what this product outlasts on the same shelf, and by how much. Freezing this one instead would reach 6 months, which the comparison above leaves out on purpose.
- Cocoa and cocoa mixes1 year1 year in the pantry once opened
- Garam masala1 year1 year in the pantry
- Fruit cake12 months6 months sealed in the pantry
- Flour12 months6 months in the pantry once opened
- Frosting or icing12 months2 weeks in the fridge once opened
- Gelatin12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
- Oils12 months3 months in the pantry once opened
- Nut oils12 months6 months in the fridge once opened
The record this page is built from
This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 561 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 3 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in years, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. The record carries 1 handling note, quoted on this page word for word. It is filed under Baking and Cooking inside Baked Goods, which is where every shelf comparison on this page comes from.
Where these numbers come from
Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.
Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.
Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.
Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.
USDA index terms: packaged, Yeast
KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.